This is the third of this range of ‘private label’ bars from Valrhona, designed to allow chocolate shops and other companies to easily put out quality bars under their own name. We don’t like to hide origins from you though, and we’re more interested in trying new chocolate recipes from Valrhona than making any spurious claims.

Of the three bars we’ve tried in this range, I think you will agree this is the best so far, and the first to really come near to the highest Valrhona standards.

There’s a certain sweetness here and a light, cocoa powder feel. Hints of coconut and perhaps a little dryness, this may not be in the same league as Valrhona’s vintage Venezuelan, Palmira, but I think it would stand quite well next to current batches of Guanaja or Valrhona’s other Venezuelan chocolate, Araguani.

I have to add to the above by saying that I just recently tried a bar of 2006 Palmira from a later delivery (in a chocolatiers shop) and it was VERY different to previous samples of the same year. Lost all the full honey notes and fruit top, was rather flat and not nearly as good. This is very strange as I understood they only made the chocolate once a year - perhaps this has changed?